This invention relates to trawler doors, sometimes known as otter doors, used in trawler fishing for attachment, respectively, to towlines extending from a towing vessel to the sides of a trawler net and adapted to cause the towlines to diverge when towed to hold open the side of the mouth of the net.
Trawler doors are well known and are disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,582,641; 3,007,273; and 3,299,560. Two types of doors in common use are flat, wooden, rectangular doors having a metal frame and projecting arms for attachment to the towlines, and metal arcuate doors with inner concave sides towed at a substantial angle to the direction of forward motion. Both types of doors require substantial maintenance and power to tow them through the water. The arcuate metal doors require significantly greater power than the wooden doors and their use is generally restricted to larger vessels.
It is the principal object of the present invention to provide improved trawler doors which are easy and inexpensive to manufacture, require reduced maintenance, require less power in use, and which maintain their position under tow with a minimum of towline entanglement.